Case valuation after scrambling: Nominative objects in Japanese

Abstract

This paper provides new evidence for the claim that nominative objects in Japanese undergo overt movement without remaining at their base-generated positions, based on a variant of the construction which has not received as much attention as its complex predicate counterpart. It is then argued that the overt movement is scrambling. Departing from the general assumption, this paper investigates the hypothesis that an application of scrambling affects Case valuation, which was originally investigated by Fukui & Nishigauchi (1992) and Fukui (1995) (cf. Kuno 2002). Under the proposal, a nominative object is scrambled from its original position to the edge of vP, where nominative Case can be assigned. When scrambling does not take place, the object stays in-situ and receives accusative Case at its base-generated position. In other words, the Case alternation is contingent on the application of scrambling, which captures the optionality of the Case alternation in terms of that of scrambling. It is also proposed that the proposed mechanism of the Case alternation be restricted in such a way that the landing site and the base-generated position are included in the same transferred domain. Given this restriction, it is also possible to correctly capture cases where scrambling does not affect case valuation. The proposed analysis crucially adopts the hypothesis proposed by Chomsky (2001), where the transferred domain is the complement of a phase head. To the extent that the proposed analysis is successful, this paper lends support to this characterization of transferred domains.